I was quite taken by an idea of working as a nanny in Great Britain, imagining myself a kind of a new Mary Poppins. The newspapers were full of ads of possible jobs abroad, via some unknown freshly-created agencies. All of a sudden it felt like the whole world has open its doors, you just need to stretch your arm and grab your chance. Years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed, I was a University student, and pretty naive at that too. It is a very sinister read, which poses moral questions about how easily a victim might become a perpetrator, and whether we are born evil or made evil. Marion can no longer pretend that evil does not dwell in their house. He asks Marion to go down the cellar steps and care for his visitors. Suddenly, her brother John has a heart attack and is admitted to the hospital. She can lounge on the sofa, daydreaming, stuffing herself with cakes and biscuits and watching romantic films on TV non-stop. By ignoring the horrors below she might pretend that nothing sinister is happening.
She is not entirely stupid, yet she has convinced herself to keep herself to herself and ignore her brother's secret activities in the cellar. Marion lives a life of an amoeba, or even a parasite, who eats, sleeps and daydreams. Everyone including her nearest neighbour takes advantage of her. She has been cruelly taunted and bullied at school (the narrative shifts from the present to past, and back to the present). She sleeps surrounded by her teddies, and on the surface of it, has been victimised by her overbearing family. Marion Zetland is a shy spinster in her fifties, who lives with her older brother. (Sept.The Visitors by Catherine Burns (Legend Press) is a creepy, disturbing and upsetting Gothic tale of our times. Deliberate pacing, a claustrophobic setting, and vivid, wildly unsympathetic characters complement the twisted plot and grim conclusion. Marion’s emotional instability and proclivity for denial cause readers to question her reliability. Burns blurs the line between crime fiction and horror in this relentlessly bleak tale of loneliness and neglect. Marion tries not to dwell on what might actually be happening in the cellar-she’s powerless to change the situation, so why bother?-but then John falls ill, forcing Marion to face some harsh truths.
John, a disgraced former schoolteacher, spends his days in the house’s cellar, where he allegedly builds model airplanes, but that explanation doesn’t account for the sobs and screams that occasionally escape the air vents.
She passes time by daydreaming, watching TV, and trying to please her cruel and imperious older brother, John, with whom she shares her dead parents’ dilapidated Northport, England, home. British author Burns’s disquieting debut focuses on Marion Zetland, a 54-year-old spinster who has never held a job, had a friend, or known love.
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